


There Should Be Light

by phantisma



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-12
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:38:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantisma/pseuds/phantisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam is stolen by demons and taken from this earth, Dean finds a way to win him back...but when they return, the world is a changed place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The world outside the window was not the one he left 6 months before in the search for his brother.

The sky was dark midnight blue though he was certain it was nearing seven in the morning. There should be light. Sun. There should be warmth.

There should be children waiting for school buses and people bustling to work. There should be sirens and horns and shouting. Instead there was dark. There was cold. There was silence.

Smoke climbed in towers out of the smoldering debris of what had once been Oakland, California. High rise buildings were empty shells, and anything below ten stories was hollowed out by fire and looters and god only knew what else.

They’ve been there too long and he knows they need to take advantage of the day to move on. If they were lucky they might find a vehicle that still ran, enough gas to get them over the stretch of nothing between here and the next city. Small towns and wild spaces weren’t safe.

Not that the cities were either. But at least they could get high enough to see…to have a warning. They’ve been camped in this room for days, letting his brother rest, heal…letting Dean figure out what to do next…try to figure out what happened…anything to avoid the desolation.

“Dean?” The voice was soft, filled with…something that made Dean cringe as he turned.

Sam was sitting up, a good sign, his hands clawing at the gauze around his eyes. “Hey, Sam. Leave it.” Dean crossed to the bed and grabbed his hands. “Leave it. I promise you’re safe.”

“Can’t see.” Sam’s hands grab at his and Dean can see the panic pulling at the thin line of his mouth.

Some days he didn’t remember…some days that was more merciful.

He let go with one hand and pressed it to Sam’s cheek. “I know Sammy, I know…please…just trust me. Please.” He didn’t mean to sound so desperate, but he couldn’t face what was hidden by the bandages, not again…not now…and truth was, desperate was a pretty accurate description of his state of mind.

The Sam he’d found wasn’t the one taken from him, any more than this was the world he had left behind. Dean could still picture him, like he was when he’d found him…his face slack and unresponsive, dirty, bloody and hanging in restraints…and when he did turn his face toward Dean…when Dean had seen what they had done…He’d retched and cried, screamed and killed…he’d ripped apart anything and everything that came near him with little more than his bare hands.

_Sammy…my beautiful Sammy…_

“Dean?”

Dean cussed himself and turned his attention back to his brother. This was one of his better moments, and Dean didn’t know how long it would last before his face would pale and he’d go inside himself seeing things Dean couldn’t imagine.

It was obvious Sam wasn’t seeing Dean, or the world around them either.

Sam settled under his touch as Dean soothed his thumbs over Sam’s cheekbones, making sounds that made little sense, but calmed him. “Where are we?” Sam asked after a few minutes and Dean sighed in relief. His voice was tight, clipped. He remembered, at least for the moment. That meant Dean wouldn’t have to explain, wouldn’t have to watch him react to it all over again.

“Oakland.” Dean replied. “Hungry? I found some stuff.”

Sam shook his head and groped for Dean’s hand. “I remember. You came for me.”

Dean smiled. “Yes. I did. I always will.”

“I’m…sorry.” Sam whispered, pulling Dean’s hand to his lips and pressing a quick kiss to it.

Dean didn’t need to ask what for. The wounds in his face and shoulder would heal, but he’d never be pretty again…not that it mattered…not when the choice was leaving Sam behind in that hell. “Don’t be.” Sam’s hand rose to his face, skimming over the scabbed marks of his fight to free Sam and Dean let him feel them for a minute, his own hand mimicking the movements over Sam’s face.

Sam’s injuries seemed to be mostly internal, metaphysical…emotional. Aside from the eyes and the bruises. He’d put up one hell of a fight when they grabbed him. “You feeling up to moving? We shouldn’t stay put.”

Sam nodded, moving toward Dean’s voice, sliding his legs to the floor. He seemed so…young and frail and Dean had to look away to find his own ability to stand. “I thought we’d head north…see if…” He didn’t finish, on some level he knew they wouldn’t find much, no matter where they went.

It was the same in San Francisco, where they’d crawled their way back into the world. Everything had just stopped. No newspapers to tell them what happened. No people…not live ones anyway. Empty towns and cities. Empty like Sam’s eyes.

Dean shook off the thought and got to his feet, helping Sam up and into his jeans. “I’ve got our stuff.”

Empty…but they weren’t alone. The nights were alive with things…evil things. Day wasn’t much better, with the lack of light and the cold…but somehow it offered the illusion of safety. So he moved them during the day and prayed he wouldn’t need to fight anything off during one of Sam’s relapses.

“Is there…anything? Sam asked as he waited near the door for Dean to shoulder their two bags, everything they’d collected in the weeks they’d been running…some clothes, weapons…a little bit of food.

Dean shook his head before he realized Sam wouldn’t see him. “No, Sam. Just like San Francisco. Just like San Jose. Nothing.”

 

Nothing. It was worse not knowing. Worse because he wondered if it was his fault. Dean didn’t sleep much, and when he did, he saw it all…heard Sam scream his name as _something_ pulled him into that vortex and his father fought to keep him from following, yelling words that Dean was only beginning to understand.

He’d known the whole mess was bigger than them…had tried to talk Sam and his father out of it…tried to hold on to Sam as _it_ folded him in half and sucked him out of this world…tried so damn hard to keep it together...and chose to follow Sam, consequences be damned.

Sometimes at night when Sam was asleep and Dean felt most alone, he wondered if he had done this…somehow. And maybe that was an inflation of his own importance…and maybe…

Sam’s hand was on his shoulder, following him, trusting. “Lift up…we’re going over some debris.” Dean murmured. His hand closed over Sam’s as he guided him around a pile of crumbled concrete. He’d seen a car up ahead that seemed more or less intact.

“Okay, Sam. We’re stopping.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a car. I’m going to see if I can start it.”

Dean left Sam standing a few feet from the mustang with a chunk of concrete on its trunk. Dean started as he opened the driver’s side door. The driver was still there…his rotting corpse still holding to the steering wheel. Beside him was a woman, clutching a child. He gagged as the smell hit him and had to turn away.

“Dean? What is it?”

“Stay there, Sam. Just…more bodies.”

Sam’s jaw tightened. Dean reached around the dead man and turned the ignition, relieved when it turned over immediately. “Looks like we’ve got a ride, Sam. Give me a few minutes to clean it up.”

Dean covered his mouth with his t-shirt and set about pulling the bodies from the car and cleaning out the mess. The smell would linger and they’d have to drive with the windows open for a while.

“Okay, come on.” Dean guided Sam around to the passenger side of the car and settled him into the seat.

“Stinks.”

“Yeah…they’d been here a while.”

“There was a kid.”

Dean swallowed and shook off the feeling that came whenever Sam did that. “Yeah, there was.”

“What happened, Dean?” Sam curled in, with his back to his door, reaching for the warmth of Dean beside him.

“Wish I knew Sam. I’ve been gone almost as long as you.” Took him almost a month to find a way in…a month his baby brother had been at the mercy of filthy demonic forces. And another two before Dean was able to figure out how to get to him…and all that talk about time being relative was shit, because he’d felt every single minute of every single day. Then had come the fight. Nearly a month was lost in pointless challenges…a month where Dean battled himself and the demon put him through paces with promises of giving him Sam back.

Dean shook off the memory and squeezed Sam’s hand where it rested on the seat between them. “We did this.” Sam said suddenly in the silence as Dean set the car onto the freeway, headed north on the I-80.

“What do you mean Sam?”

The look on his face was chilling, even without seeing his eyes. “Don’t know. Just…we did this. You, me…Dad.”

Dad. Dean had left him in Minnesota, where it had happened, where the eldest Winchester had led them into a trap because of his stubborn pride and Sam had paid the price. Dean drove away and never looked back.

“I don’t think we did.” Dean lied. Part of him did believe just that.

“We aren’t alone.” Sam’s face turned toward the window, as if he could see. Dean looked, squinting into the dark.

There was a dark cloud moving their way. “Shit. Hold on Sam.”

Dean increased their speed, maneuvering the car around abandoned vehicles and holes ripped in the concrete. For a minute it looked like it would catch them, then Dean started to pull away. “Shit!” He hit the steering wheel and bit back his frustration. It wouldn’t help them.

Though, he had to wonder if anything would, at this point.

 

 

The clock in the dash of the car said it was nearly 2 in the afternoon. The sky was just as dark as it had been when they’d left Oakland. Dean circled the downtown section of Sacramento. He’d been there years before, hunting a witch with a taste for young boys. Finally he settled on a high rise hotel, figuring it would be more likely to have usable supplies. He drove into its lobby, through blown out windows, parking it near the stairs.

An hour later, he and Sam settled into a room on the 20th floor. He got Sam into bed and set about securing them for the night, salt and incantations, sigils and prayers he wasn’t even sure would protect them any more. He let the routine carry him. It was easier. There were guns to clean and knives to sharpen; there was dinner to be found, his brother to care for. Everything else…

Dean looked up from the table where he was cleaning their stolen handgun by the light of a single flashlight. He’d gotten so accustomed to the dark. Sam was looking at him. He could feel Sam looking at him. He shook his head, finished reassembling the gun.

“You eat?” Dean asked as he stood.

Sam shook his head, holding up the package of crackers Dean had given him. “Sam, you have to eat.”

“I know.” Sam said. “Come eat with me?”

Dean nodded, though Sam wouldn’t know it. He turned off the flashlight and paused by the bed. “Let me wash my hands.”

He stepped into the bathroom, thankful the place still had running water. It was cold, but it was better than nothing. As he crawled into bed beside Sam, his brother took his hand, pressing it to the gauze that circled his head. “Take it off.” He said it softly, but it cut through Dean.

“No…you need to heal.”

“I…need to…please, Dean?”

Dean licked his lips. “Sam…”

He pulled Dean’s hand down to his lips, kissing it fervently. “I know what happened, Dean. I know…but I…need to…see…feel…so I can…”

Dean could hear the words, the laughter. He’d had to fight, work his way through trials, and his every failure had cost Sam. Dean hadn’t known…not until he’d finally reached his brother at the end, not until he’d finally won…finally killed the fucking bastard…and Sam had turned that vacant face to his.

The guilt of it gnawed at him…so that even if he wasn’t somehow responsible for the world at large, he was for this. “Okay…Just, relax.”

His hands shook as he unwound the gauze. His stomach churned. As the last of it fell away, he looked at his hands, at the bedspread…anywhere but Sam’s face. Sam’s hands slid over his face, up to his eyes. There was the tiniest hitch of his breath, as if he expected something else.

Dean couldn’t stop the sob that escaped him, couldn’t keep from doubling over as the pain hit him in the stomach. Sam’s hands soothed over him, drawing Dean’s head to rest against his brother’s chest. “It’s okay, Dean. I’m okay…you came for me…you came for me.”

But it would never be okay again. It was dark and getting darker. They were alone and everything was wrong. There should be light…but the light was gone…and in its place was nothing but empty sockets where the light of his world once sparkled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sam is stolen by demons and taken from this earth, Dean finds a way to win him back...but when they return, the world is a changed place, and Sam is a changed man...and every day brings them closer to the end...unless they can find a way to undo whatever it is they did to bring hell to earth.

_This is the end, beautiful friend_

He had never really believed…not really…not ever.

The end. Like there was anything as simple as that. 

_This is the end, my only friend, the end_

This was it, however. Whether he believed it or not. 

And it was fitting that it was just him and Sam here at the end. 

Alone. Together. 

Brothers. Warriors. 

Hunters. Lovers.

Wind howled through the gutted building, cold and gritty. It pulled over his skin, over scars and wounds still healing…wounds that would never be scars. He leaned on the concrete wall and watched the dark settling deeper into the crevices of broken buildings and huddled mounds of debris, his arms folded around him, holding him in place. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to watch the dark. He wanted to fuck and be fucked. He wanted to eat and drink, and face what was coming, sated and happy.

He wanted to throw himself willingly into battle and kill as many of the sons of bitches as he could before he went down.

He didn’t want to let himself remember the other things he had wanted once. He’d wanted to save Sam. He’d wanted to give Sam the normal he craved so much.

But he hadn’t done either.

He’d watched Sam get pulled into hell. He’d fought for him - and won - but not before Sam had paid a heavy price. He’d brought him back…though the world they came back to was empty. Cold. Dark.

Three months and they had yet to see the sun. Now, there was snow on the ground. 

“Dean?” He turned, reached for Sam in the dark. Sam’s hand closed on his, filling the space between them, pressing their bodies together. 

“It’s okay Sam.” It wasn’t, but he said it. Nothing was okay. But Sam let him say it, let him slide an arm around his waist and rest his head against Sam’s chest. “Let’s get some rest.”

He guided Sam away from the open fall to the ground, where once plate glass windows had held the elements at bay, ten stories up overlooking a city sinking into the inky black. He moved them slowly, over to the makeshift bed. Sam sank onto it, still holding onto Dean’s hand. It reminded Dean that his brother was changed, vulnerable. Here, in the dark, alone.

In the heat of battle Sam could pretend, could stand strong and use his new skills to defend himself…but here, in the dark, he was so small, so frail. 

Sam pulled the sunglasses away from his face, rubbing one hand over empty sockets before turning his face up to Dean. He was never more grateful for the lack of light than when Sam did that, when his face was open and trusting, those two black sockets staring back at him blankly.

“You should sleep,” Sam said as Dean sat slowly beside him.

“I will.” Dean lied. Sleep was elusive. “We’ll head out in the morning.”

“It’ll be over soon.” Sam said, but it wasn’t comforting for either of them. 

Over. The End. 

Lights Out. Game Over.

Dean nodded, laid back on the mattress of of blankets and old clothes. Sam’s lips moved over his chest, up to his neck. “Thought you wanted to sleep.” Dean said softly. He didn’t stop Sam, didn’t move to help him either, just let him take what he needed.

“Want you more.” Sam murmured, his lips slipping over a long scab, down to Dean’s navel. 

It hadn’t been like this. Not before the dark. As the days and weeks stumbled by them, they’d fallen closer and closer, pressed in by the emptiness around them, by guilt and fear, by the need to know they were still alive. 

The first time had been desperate, Sam pulling at Dean, kissing and touching and whimpering until Dean had claimed him, taking him hard and hot in the front seat of their stolen Mustang.

“Sam…” Dean tried to stop it, then tried to pretend it never happened, but the need and desperation grew the longer they searched for someone…anyone …and found only empty streets, dead bodies and demons roaming the darkness.

Dean moaned as Sam’s fingers found his zipper and eased it down. His mouth was warm and wet, and he’d learned fast the way to get Dean hard. He hummed as he took Dean into him, his hands working Dean’s jeans down.

“Sam.” Dean reached for him, drawing him up to kiss, claiming Sam’s mouth with his own. 

“Dean.” Sam’s breath stole into him, creating the illusion of life. Dean latched onto it, onto him, rolled them. It was better when he didn’t think, when he gave Sam what he needed, when he gave in to the touch and burn, salty sweat and the slick of skin wet with need. He sank into Sam, both of them moaning as their bodies writhed together. 

Sam’s hands grabbed at him, wanting him closer, deeper. Dean closed his eyes, let go of the fear that this would only damn them further…let it melt in the friction of their bodies moving as one.

In the heat he could pretend.

It was in the cold that followed that he knew they were doomed.

“East.” Sam said, his fingers feeling over his face, shaving dry while Dean packed them up.

“East.” Dean echoed. They’d fought their way out of California and into Nevada, across the dry landscape into Idaho and Wyoming. All of that space and they were alone in it.

They kept moving. Unconsciously back to where it started. Back to where he’d left their father sleeping off a tequila coma to go find Sam. Dean shouldered their bag, waited for Sam to take his elbow, led him down the stairs to the car. He’d spent part of the day before siphoning gas out of abandoned vehicles, and he’d managed a full tank. 

Sam was more confident with moving around than he’d been in the beginning, his senses starting to fill in for his missing eyes, his trust in Dean unwavering.

Dean watched the shadows as they moved down the staircases, “Just a few more.”

Sam froze, cocked his head like he was listening to something. “Dean.” His hand tightened on Dean’s arm. “Someone’s out there.” He pointed to the door that led out to the ruined lobby of the building they’d spent the night in, his hand shaking.

“Someone?”

Sam nodded slowly. “A person, Dean.”

Dean pressed a gun into his hand. “Stay here.”

Sam moved until his back was against the wall. Dean opened the door and eased out into the dark cavern, his eyes sweeping around him. A person. He had no reason to mistrust Sam, he hadn’t been wrong yet. He crouched behind the couch and listened.

There. He lifted his gun and inched toward the sound, breathing softly and moving slowly, leading with his gun. He let his hand move around the corner, flinching as the muzzle of the gun pushed against something soft, and looking down to find the muzzle of another gun against his chest.

His eyes flicked up and he blinked. He stared into the face that stepped closer with disbelief, holding his breath and expecting him to melt back into the shadows.

“Bobby?” Dean stepped back, dropped his gun. “Fuck, Bobby.” Before the older man could react Dean grabbed him into a hug. “Fuck, we thought…everyone was gone…we’ve been going for months and you’re the first person…”

Bobby finally thumped his back and stepped back, his eyes sweeping over Dean, and coming back to the scars covering the left side of his face. Dean turned away, hiding them.

“Dean? What the hell are you doing here?”

Dean shook his head. “We…just trying to figure out what happened.”

Bobby scratched at the back of his head. “We?”

“Sam. Hang on.” He picked his way back to the door. “Sammy, it’s me.” He reached for Sam, pulling him close. “It’s Bobby.”

Sam nodded, let Dean lead him out into the lobby. “Watch your step, there’s stuff everywhere.” 

“Sam?” 

Dean watched Sam push the sunglasses up, smile softly. “Hey Bobby.”

Bobby hugged Sam, Sam’s hand anchored on Dean’s arm. “We figured you boys were gone. Never thought we’d see you again.”

“Well, it wasn’t easy.” Dean said, uncomfortable. “How’d you know?”

Bobby’s face scrunched up. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got a camp set up not far from here. Ground’s been consecrated. Been gathering survivors there.” He hefted a bag he’d dropped at his feet. It rattled, like cans banging together. “Food. Getting tired of beans.”

Dean nodded and gestured for Bobby to lead the way, tightening a hand over Sam’s on his arm. He murmured directions softly as he needed to, picking their way over fallen light panels and trash, out through the back of the building to the huge SUV that was obviously Bobby’s ride. 

It was rigged up with lights and water canons, a machine gun on the roof. “Holy water?” Dean asked as he ran a hand over the canon on the driver’s side.

“Fortunately for us, a few priests survived. Not that it does a lot of good, but it buys us time.”

“Okay, Sammy. In you get.” Dean opened the back door and set Sam’s hand on the seat, let him maneuver his way in, then tossed their duffle in beside him. As he passed the back end, Bobby opened it to toss the bag in, alongside a couple of gas cans and other bags of canned goods. 

He climbed in the passenger side as Bobby brought the engine roaring to life. He waited while Bobby navigated his way out onto open road, trying to figure out how to ask the question.

“We spent a month clearing this stretch of road.” Bobby said, rubbing a hand over his face. The whole thing’s been blessed. It keeps the lesser demons from harassing us, but every couple of weeks some of the big boys give us a run.” He sighed, glanced at Dean, then over his shoulder at Sam. “Last I heard you boys were…gone. Pitched into hell.”

“Sam was pitched. I went in after him.” Dean said quietly. “And it wasn’t…hell… or rather, it wasn’t THE hell. It was…someplace else.”

“So?” 

Yeah, that was probably fair. Whatever happened had started there. Dean sighed. “I went in after him. I fought until I won and then I dragged him back. And everything was…like this.” He waved his hand at the emptiness around them.

Bobby nodded. “You boys got up into shit like nothing I ever saw.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Dean said quietly. “Dad was convinced he’d found a way to beat the yellow-eyed demon.”

He closed his eyes. He hadn’t been able to hear what was going on over the howling of the wind, only that his father was arguing with the thing he had summoned, then the world split in half and Sam was gone, his voice still echoing around in the space, screaming Dean’s name.

“Your daddy’s an ass.” Bobby said, wiping his face again. “He shoulda known better.”

“We did this.” Sam said from behind them. “Didn’t we?”

Bobby shook his head. “No Sam, not your fault.”

Dean heard what Bobby didn’t say, loud and clear. “But it’s Dad’s,” Dean mumbled, reality dawning.

“He came to me after you left, Dean. Told me about it. He was devastated. He tried to get me to help him get Sam back.”

Dean turned to look at him. “He did?”

Bobby nodded. “But what he was messing with…what you boys raised…that’s evil like nothing this world could handle. Makes all the demons you ever fought look like kittens.”

“It wanted me.” Sam said. Dean looked at him. Sam never spoke about it, not in all the time they’d been back. Sam licked his lips. “That’s what it wanted, for what Dad wanted. Me, for the yellow-eyed Demon.”

“And Dad gave you to him.” Dean said, acid dripping from his tongue. The urge to kill his old man burned in his chest. 

“No, Dean. He refused. It figured if it hid me, sent me someplace where Dad knew I’d be tortured, Dad would give in.”

“But he didn’t.” Dean said.

“No, he didn’t.” Bobby agreed. 

For some reason that just pissed Dean off more.

“So you going to tell me what happened here?” Dean asked.

“The world wasn’t going to hell fast enough. So hell came to earth.” 

 

_Of our elaborate plans, the end  
Of everything that stands, the end_

 

They pulled off the main road and followed a gravel one to a dirt one and kept driving. As they passed markers, sigils and talismans, Dean started to wonder just how bad it was for Bobby to live behind so many layers of protection.

“About twenty of us here, and another thirty in a camp up north. We try to keep the roads between us clear and protected…and the demons try to break through, to separate us. There’s other camps south of here, but we haven’t heard from them in almost two weeks.” Bobby slowed the truck. “Most of who survived were hunters, they saw it coming and tried to fight, tried to stop it.”

“It wasn’t enough.” Sam said softly. His hand fumbled over the seat to find Dean’s shoulder, needing reassurance, comfort. Dean took it in his own, rubbing a thumb over the scars that dotted Sam’s hand.

“No. That thing you and your daddy woke…” Bobby shook his head. He sighed explosively. Ahead of them a wall of beat up tractor trailers formed a barricade gated with massive wrought iron gates that looked like they’d come from a cemetery. Beyond that gate a hodge podge of motor homes and tents and campers filled the plain. Giant lights lit the whole place up like daylight. People stopped, staring. Two boys, maybe nine or ten, came running, stopping short when they realized that Bobby wasn’t alone. “That’s Eli and Phillip. The first ones I found. Their mother died to keep them from getting taken by some demons.”

“They’re like me.” Sam squeezed Dean’s hand.

“Come on, let’s find you boys a place to put your stuff.”

Dean helped Sam out of the vehicle, watching Bobby ruffle the hair of the younger of the two boys. “Bobby should have been a father.” Sam said as they followed. “He was always good with us too.”

As they entered the compound, others came out to see the newcomers. Other than the two boys, it was a pretty rough and tumble crowd. There were half familiar faces, or maybe it was just the familiar stories those faces told. Scars and haunted, gaunt faces, watching as they moved through the camp. 

“This here was Agnes and Bill’s tent. They ain’t coming back.” Bobby pointed at a dirty blue tent. “That’s me over there.” He pointed at a beat up trailer. A woman was coming toward them, her dark blond hair pulled back away from her face. “Ellen, this here is Sam and Dean Winchester.”

“John’s boys?” Her eyes flicked over them, then to Bobby, the question in them clear.

“Yes, John’s boys.” Dean responded. He was more than a little annoyed, but why shouldn’t these people hold him responsible for what his father did? They didn’t know any better. 

“I meant no offense.”

“Look, lady, I’m sure you’re a good person, okay? I’m sure that look didn’t mean what it looked like. But yeah, I’m offended. I’m not him. Sam sure as hell isn’t him. We’ve been through hell, literally. We’ve gotten the shit kicked out of us, and I’m not expecting we’ll be alive for very much longer. So, spare me the pity and the sermons and let me make my brother comfortable.”

He turned them into the tent, helping Sam duck low enough to get in and settling him onto the low mattress on the floor.

“Dean.”

“Not now Sam.” He could see the look on Sam’s face, and wasn’t ready for the lecture about lashing out at the only people that could help them.

“Then when, Dean? You said it yourself, we don’t have long.”

“I want to kill him.” Dean said through clenched teeth. His stomach churned with it, the desire to see the old man just one more time.

“You don’t mean that.” Sam took the sunglasses off and rubbed his face. “You can’t.”

“I do.” Dean laid back on the mattress beside Sam, covering his face with one arm. He didn’t want to have to look at Sam, at the black empty holes. The light from outside hurt his eyes. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to the dark. “Lay with me Sammy. Just…for now.”

 

_No safety or surprise, the end  
I’ll never look into your eyes...again_

Sam waited until Dean was snoring lightly. He hadn’t ever tried moving around without him, not since he’d convinced Dean to take off the bandages, not since he’d realized he’d never see again. He inched his way to the opening in the tent, crawled out. He stood slowly, listening, trying to piece together the way they’d come. 

Bobby’s trailer was on his left, he could sense Bobby there inside it. He wasn’t alone, but before Sam could get a feeling for who was with him, the woman’s voice startled him. 

“Sam, right?”

He nodded. “You’re Ellen?”

“Yep. Ellen Harvelle. I’m a friend of your father’s.”

“I was kind of under the impression that he didn’t have many of those left.”

He got the sense she shrugged. “Desperate men do desperate things. He’s got plenty of enemies, I figure he doesn’t need me to be one of them.”

Sam froze. “He’s…here. Isn’t he?”

He turned toward Bobby’s trailer. “He’s in there.”

“That’s some gift you’ve got.” Ellen said, setting her hand on his elbow and keeping him from going to the trailer.

“I guess it’s supposed to make up for what I lost.” Sam could hear the bitterness in his voice and made a face. It wasn’t her fault. He shouldn’t take it out on her.

“We’ve all lost things, Sam.” Ellen said softly.

“Yeah, I guess we have.” He took a deep breath. “You going to hold my arm all day, or are you going to take me to my father?”

“You sure you’re up to seeing him?”

“No more than he’s up to seeing me.” 

He did his best not to shuffle his feet. It was like broadcasting that he couldn’t see. “We’ll have to see about getting you a cane for feeling things out.” Ellen said softly.

Sam didn’t tell her that there wasn’t any point, that none of them would live long enough for it to matter. He just concentrated on not falling, on making his feet keep moving. She stopped him and he heard her knock. The door opened and Sam tilted his head up. 

“Sam?”

He nodded. “I want to talk to him.”

“He’s in no shape—“

“I don’t give a shit, Bobby.” Sam felt for the door and lifted his foot to the step. He felt Bobby move out of his way, heard him murmuring ahead of him. The trailer rocked as he moved, and he flailed a little finding the boundaries around him, then he felt Bobby’s hand on his arm.

“Easy, Son. Watch your head.” Sam ducked, then Bobby was guiding his hand forward.

There was a shoulder under his hand. Sam gasped involuntarily. The shoulder was gaunt, tight. If this was his father, he’d dropped a lot of weight. “Dad?”

He felt the shift, heard a whimper. “Give us a minute?” He asked over his shoulder. 

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be outside.”

Sam nodded, listening to his retreating steps. He slid his hand up the shoulder to a neck, then up that to a beard covered jaw line. “Dad, it’s Sam.”

Even the jawline was smaller than he remembered, thinner…like his father was just wasting away. Slowly Sam sank to one knee in front of him. “Dad?”

There was another whimper, then hands were moving on his face, fumbling for the sunglasses. “No, Dad, leave them.”

“What happened to you Sammy?” The voice was wrecked, cracked and broken and filled with the shattered remains of a once strong man. “You…you went away and I couldn’t find you.”

“Dean found me, Dad. Dean found me and brought me back.”

“Filthy bastard wanted me to give you to him, Sammy…wanted to have you…took you away, said I couldn’t have you either…”

“It’s okay Dad.” Sam moved to hug him, shocked at how little there was of him to hold. It wasn’t okay, but his anger kind of evaporated in the face of how damaged his father was. 

“Let me see, Sam.” His hands lifted to the glasses again and Sam pulled back. 

“No.” He held them to his face. “You don’t need to.”

“Sam!” Dean’s voice rocked the trailer.

“Shit.” Sam had expected him to sleep. He heard Bobby trying to stop Dean, but there wouldn’t be any stopping him, not when he didn’t have Sam beside him. The door opened and the trailer lurched.

“Son of a bitch!” 

Sam stood, blocking Dean. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you goddamn son of a bitch!”

“Dean. Stop.”

Dean pushed all the harder and Sam had to put a hand on his chest. “Stop.”

“No. Let me at him.”

“Dean, look at him. Really look at him.” He felt Dean back off, breathing heavy. Behind him he felt his father stand.

“Go ahead. End it. Do it.”

“Both of you, cut it out.”

“This is your fault.” Dean said over Sam’s shoulder. “You and your goddamn obsession.”

“I know.” 

“Do you? Do you Dad? Do you see your sons? Do you see my face? Sam’s?” Hands snatched the sunglasses off Sam’s face. “Do you see? Because Sam sure as fuck can’t!”

Sam felt Dean jerk away from him.

“That is enough of that. Get your ass out of my trailer.”

Dean sputtered as Bobby yanked him away, leaving Sam without the protection of his glasses, and his father staring into his empty face.

“My god, Sam—“ His touch burned like hellfire and Sam pulled away, covering his face.

“No, don’t…I don’t want you to see.”

Sam pulled back, stumbled toward the door, feeling for it and stumbling out, grateful for the arms that caught him and steadied him. It wasn’t Dean though and Bobby’s gasp when he got a good look at Sam’s face made him cringe and pull away again.

“Sam, stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Leave me alone!” He yanked free of Bobby, only to find himself tangled up with someone else, Ellen he presumed. “Fuck. Dean!”

“Right here.” Dean’s voice was cold and hard in his ear and Sam turned to him, burying his face in his brother’s shoulder, panting heavily. 

“Just…Dean…”

“I know, I’ve got you. Come on.” 

The tent wasn’t exactly privacy, but at least he couldn’t feel their eyes on him. Dean pressed the sunglasses into his hand and Sam slipped them on. Dean’s hands were gentle on his face, his lips soft as he kissed him.

“I’m sorry.” Sam said, hanging his head. 

“No, Sam. No. You don’t need to be sorry.”

“But I am.”

They were quiet then. Dean rummaged around in their bag and Sam heard the pill bottle. He shook his head. “Don’t want them.”

Dean sighed. Sam wished he could see his face, read his expression. “I’m trying Sam.”

“I know.” Sam reached for him, pulled him in close, their lips all but touching. “I know Dean. It’s okay.”

“No.” Sam felt the wetness and ran his thumb through the tears. “It’s not okay, Sam. None of this is okay.”

Sam kissed over wet cheeks, up to his eyes, soft, tender. “Shh…Dean.” By the time his lips came back to Dean’s, they were open, inviting. Sam’s tongue slipped between them, tasted Dean and tears and the quiet despair of knowing the end was near. He pressed until Dean was under him, slipped a hand into his jeans and slowly stroked him, sucking every whimper and groan into his mouth and swallowing it down with the pain. 

 

_Can you picture what will be  
So limitless and free  
Desperately in need...of some...strangers hand  
In a...desperate land_

 

Dean felt the lights come on the next morning, groaned a little as he remembered the where and why of the tent and Sam’s hand still on his cock. He rolled onto his back, got himself tucked in and zipped up and emerged from the tent. 

The sky was black, just like it always was. The air was cold. Bobby was standing outside the trailer, holding out a cup of coffee.

“I was coming to talk to you.”

“Not much in a mood for talking.” Dean said, taking the coffee.

Bobby nodded, his eyes sweeping over the slowly rousing camp. “Can expect an attack sometime today.”

“What kind?”

Bobby shrugged. “Probably a frontal assault, most of these bastards the big guy sends aren’t all that bright.” He sipped on his coffee. “Pastor Jim showed up through the night. He’s out reinforcing the perimeter with blessings.”

It surprised Dean somehow that Jim Murphy had made it. He pictured him dying on the front lines or something. “He’s okay?”

Bobby snorted. “Aint a one of us okay, Dean.” 

Dean’s eyes followed a few of the woman who were rousing kids and handing out weapons. “I need to protect Sam.”

Bobby nodded again. “He can stay here with your father. If we let them inside the perimeter, none of us will live. Pastor Jim came from down south. The camp down there is gone.”

“So it’s just us?”

“Yep, us and the camp up north.”

“Morning Bobby.” Ellen said as she approached, shot gun in hand. “Dean.”

“Ma’am.” Dean sipped on his coffee. “I got a couple guns, a little bit of ammo…but nothing that’s gonna do much against demons.”

“We’ll find you some blessed rounds.” Ellen offered. “If Jim gets done before the fun starts, he can take care of whatever ammo you’ve got.”

Dean sipped at the coffee. It wasn’t going to make much difference, not in the end, but it beat sitting around waiting to die. He drained the coffee. “I’ll get my guns.”

Sam sat up as he was pulling the two guns he’d kept on the road and the box of ammo that was left from what he’d stolen in the last gun shop they’d found. “Is it…are they coming?”

Dean nodded and blew out slow. “Looks like it.” 

“Give me a gun.” Sam’s hand was out. 

“Not this time. We need them all on the line.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Dean hung his head. “No Sam. Not this time. I need you…I need you to stay here, stay safe.”

Sam snorted and shook his head. “This doesn’t feel safe, Dean. This feels like sitting and waiting for them to eat us for breakfast.”

Dean moved close, caught his hands and lifted them to his lips. “I know.”

“I can handle myself.”

“I can’t lose you Sam.” Dean said softly. “I can handle lots of shit out there, but watching you die on me…I’d die too.”

Sam shook his head. “Not yet, Dean…not yet.”

“Come on, Bobby’s making breakfast.”

Sam let Dean lead him out of the tent and over to the picnic table by Bobby’s trailer. He put a fork in Sam’s hand and watched him fumble with it. They hadn’t had real food since they’d been back. Eventually Sam abandoned the fork and felt over his plate with his fingers, lifting potatoes to his mouth as he hunkered down over the plate.

Dean didn’t look up when the trailer door opened and his father came out, not until he sat beside Sam and stared at the table. When he did look, he ended up staring. This wasn’t his father. This wasn’t the John Winchester Dean knew. This was a shell of the man, wasted down to skin and bones, his face shadowed and lost behind a dark beard shot with gray. He felt Dean’s eyes and looked up.

Maybe Bobby was right and no one who survived was okay. Maybe surviving was too much to ask of any of them.

There was a yell from the front of camp, and Eli came running, shouting, “They’re coming!”

All around them people were moving toward the perimeters, the sounds of guns loading and shouts for people to cover positions. 

Dean looked at the guns in his hands, then at Sam. He emptied one of them and put two bullets in it, then pressed it into Sam’s hand. “In case they…get through….”

Sam nodded once, tight. “Let’s get you inside.”

Dean helped Sam up into the trailer and turned to find his father following them. “Bobby won’t let me…says I’ve done enough.”

“I’ll say.” Dean didn’t want to leave Sam there with him, but didn’t see much in the way of choice. He knelt in front of Sam, pressed their foreheads together. “Love you,” he whispered so only Sam would hear him.

“Be careful. Watch the east. Something’s coming from the east.”

Dean kissed his forehead and left the trailer. 

 

_Lost in a roman...wilderness of pain  
And all the children are insane  
All the children are insane  
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah_

 

Sam listened as Dean’s boot steps faded away, until it was quiet.

It wouldn’t be quiet for long.

“We were wrong,” he said into the silence. “We couldn’t control it.”

“Some things should never be let loose.” John agreed. “He was too much Sam. All those years in hibernation he only got stronger, not weaker.”

Sam nodded. He remembered his father bringing him the old manuscript, the gleam in his father’s eye. _”This thing could kill him, Sam…the damn thing that killed your mother, that killed Jess.”_ They hadn’t told Dean the whole truth.

They thought that they could control it, release it to kill the Yellow-Eyed Demon and then shove it back down into its hole. Vengeance. An end to the hunting and killing and freedom for Sam from whatever plans it had.

“It wanted me, because of what I am.” 

“It wanted you because it knew it would break me.” John countered. He had moved closer. It made Sam uncomfortable. “He’s insane Sam. Insane and insatiable. But he can’t have you, not without me. He takes the children, gives their parents something in return. I wanted the demon, it wanted you.”

“And so neither of you got what you wanted…and the whole world paid the price?” Sam asked. His father was sitting beside him, his hand on Sam’s hand, covering the gun.

“I didn’t know.”

Sam wanted to move, to pull away. He was too close, too real…his thoughts too loud and fevered. 

“Tell me what happened to you Sam. He—it said you were in the hands of demons, that you were—“

“Well, it wasn’t roses and puppies, just the thorns and teeth.” Sam said, standing and taking a tentative step away. He could hear gunfire and shouting. He turned his face to the east. “Watch the east,” he whispered as if Dean would hear him and remember.

More gunfire. The sounds of demons screaming. Sam covered his ears. He could almost feel them crawling over him, clawing at him, laughing, scratching at him until he should have been bleeding to death, but he never bled. 

“Sam?”

He shook his head. No. They taunted him. Dean’s voice, his father’s…making him think he was free, that they had come for him. He turned away, crouched down. They were all around him, swarming over him. “No!” He swatted at them, then felt the weight of the gun. He stared at it as if he could see it. He could end it.

“Sam, give me the gun.”

He shook his head, barely breathing. “They can’t hurt me anymore if I’m dead.”

“It won’t end anything Sammy…only make it worse.” His father was beside him, kneeling, his hand on the gun. “Come on, Son, give me the gun.”

Almost as suddenly as it started, the fighting stopped. Sam turned his face toward his father. “It still wants me. It knows I’m here now. It’s coming.”

He could feel it. The reason the demons left. No more skirmishes. Only one final battle. The end. Of everything. 

He put the gun in his father’s hand and stood. “We can end it. Make it right.”

“No, Son. I don’t think we can.”

Sam swallowed the nervous bile rising inside him. “You always were a selfish son of a bitch Dad.” He pushed past his father and out into the cold air, into Dean’s arms.

 

_There’s danger on the edge of town  
Ride the kings highway, baby  
Weird scenes inside the gold mine  
Ride the highway west, baby_

Sam was quiet, withdrawn in the aftermath of the battle. He’d huddled into himself like he had when they’d first found their way back, not eating until Dean had cajoled him and led him away from the others.

In the dark, when the lights were put out for the night and the camp settled around them, Sam pulled Dean into him, kissing over his face while their hands fumbled with zippers, trying to get close enough…but even skin on skin wasn’t close enough anymore.

In the close comfort of the tent, Sam had whispered, frantic, desperate…words that made no sense, but ate at Dean’s resolve, words that begged for touch, for the fire of lips and tongue and fingers…for feeling, for an end to the endless cold. 

Too many clothes and blankets and too much work to keep it all inside…the sounds of desperate need coupled with the the push and pull of his own ache for Sam…and even as Dean’s cock sank into Sam, his mouth closing over his shoulder, Sam’s hands pulled, drawing Dean’s hands to his own cock. Chest to back they lay on the old mattress, joined by the only heat left in the world. 

Dean held himself there, held himself deep inside until Sam’s mouth stopped moving, until the desperate whispers stopped. When he moved, it was a light rocking motion. “Shh…Sammy…stay with me.”

Sam sniffed through whatever emotion had brought him to this and nodded. “Right here Dean,” his voice reverent, soft…like a prayer offered up on an altar of flesh.

Their bodies molded together, writhing, pressing and shifting. The tent was close and sticky and Dean was sure the whole camp could hear them breathing, would know what they were doing, but he couldn’t have stopped, not when Sam needed him so fiercely. “I’ve got you.” Dean whispered, his free arm circling under Sam and pulling him tight against him.

“Dean…Dean…need you…” Sam’s voice hitched, up and Dean wanted to hush him, remind him that others could hear now. A sob wracked Sam’s body as they rocked forward again. Dean swallowed his own sob, swallowed it and pushed it down inside him. 

Dean pressed kisses into Sam’s skin, moving enough to reach his face, “Shh…you have me Sam, I’m here.”

Sam dragged their hands over his cock. Dean swiped his thumb over the tip and Sam shuddered. He flexed his hips, pressing his cock deeper into Sam and pressing against his prostate until he shuddered, his breath stuttering as he came. Dean’s lips slid over Sam’s neck, tasting the sweat as he pulled his hips back and pressed them in again. His own come flooded deep inside Sam, hot and sticky and wrong. Just like every time before, Dean whispered soothing words to Sam, but they did nothing for himself. He buried his face in Sam’s hair, glad his brother couldn’t see the tears. 

He hated himself more everytime he let it happen. Hated his weakness, his willingness to give Sam anything…everything…

“I have to take a turn at watch.” Dean whispered, though he wasn’t sure Sam heard him. “I’ll be out on the perimeter.” He got himself back into his clothes and climbed out of the tent. 

“He thinks it’s coming for him,” a voice said out of the dark.

Dean turned, spotting the glowing end of a cigarette. “Maybe it is.”

“I thought I could handle it.”

Dean shook his head. “Yeah, that’s the problem right there, isn’t it? You always think you can handle it…whatever the fuck it is…because you’re goddamn John fucking Winchester.”

His father didn’t answer, just stood there, smoking and looking at the ground. When his eyes finally lifted, Dean was nearly frightened by what he saw in them. 

“I know what it wants.” 

“You mean, other than Sam?” Dean turned to face him full on, his eyes narrowing.

“The thing that took your mother is gone.”

Dean wasn’t sure where his father was going…or if he was even rational enough to be having a conversation. “I have to get out to the wall. I’m on watch.”

“Sam said east, but it’s west of us.”

Dean shook his head. “We came from the west, Dad. There’s nothing out there.”

His father stared off into the west. “I can stop it. I know now.”

Dean’s jaw clenched. “No Dad. You can’t. You never could stop anything, especially not yourself.”

 

Sam woke, cold and shivering. He was alone. Alone, and it was coming. He breathed through the panic, shoved his feet into his shoes. He had to find Dean, raise the alarm. He managed to get out of the tent, but it was too late. He could feel them. 

“Dean!” He screamed it with every ounce of his being, stumbling away from the tent and hoping he was headed toward the front of camp.

“Dean!” 

He was starting to hear people grumbling about being wakened. He didn’t care. They were all going to die.

“Dean!”

There was a hand at his elbow. “Sam, settle down.”

“No, Bobby. It’s coming…it’s here.” Sam grabbed at him. “You have to save Dean. He’s out there…he’s…”

“Sam!” Dean’s voice rose over the rush of evil in the air, carried to Sam. “Get down!”

Bobby was pulling on him but he was slow, reaching out for Dean. He screamed as the talon sliced into him, the claw closing over his wrist. Not again. Bobby grabbed his other hand, held him, pulled against the demon. 

“Don’t you let go.” Dean yelled, his arms wrapping around Sam.

A shot rang out and the demon screamed. A second shot and he abandoned Sam, screeching away into the night. Sam fell into Dean’s arms, both of them falling to the ground, cradling his bleeding hand to his chest.

“Let me see.” Dean was pulling at his shirt sleeve, and Sam could feel the blood pouring out of him, hot and wet. The smell of it filled the air. It reminded him too much of then…of that day when Dean found him. The stench of it was overwhelming, coupled with the pain and Dean’s hoarse voice. “Sam, damn it, let me see.”

Sam moved his other hand off the wound and more blood pumped free.

“Fuck. I need a med kit.”

“Heat up an iron.” Bobby said. “Stitching ain’t gonna fix that.”

Sam felt Dean cradle him closer. “Hold on Sammy. Just hold on.” His hand clamped down over the bleeding wound and they waited in silence. The heat reached him first, then Bobby’s gruff voice.

“Hold him.”

Dean’s grip tightened around him and the heat kissed into Sam, burning at the dark and he could almost imagine he could see the red glow of the iron as the stench of burning flesh combined with the smell of blood. He was going to be sick. 

When he started, Dean turned him forward, holding his head up out of it. When it was over, Dean rocked him slowly. There was a needle and Dean whispering softly and then nothing.

 

_Ride the snake, ride the snake  
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby  
The snake is long, seven miles  
Ride the snake...he’s old, and his skin is cold_

 

Sometimes in his dreams, he could still see. He could watch the sun rise and set. He could trace the lines on Dean’s face. Sometimes it was like none of it ever happened.

Then he would wake and the darkness, the blank empty would settle over him, chilling him down to the core of himself. He pulled Dean to him, over him, like a blanket. His right arm felt like fire and ice, and he could feel the stitches holding his skin together. They’d cauterized the slashed artery, stitched the rest after he’d passed out.

He wasn’t ready to face it, he wanted to sleep, to sleep without the dreams.

The dreams. 

Sam sat up, pushed Dean off of him. He whimpered as he tried to use his right hand to push himself upright. Dean moaned and reached for him. “Dad.”

“What?” Dean rolled over, rubbing at sleep heavy eyes.

“He’s gone.” Sam shook his head. It wasn’t clear. Something to do with a lake…and if he wasn’t just losing what was left of his mind, a dragon.

“Sam, Dad is asleep. You should be too. Let the drugs help.”

Sam shook his head. “No, Dean. He thinks…he thinks he can fix it. It’s all blurry, but I know. I know.”

“Okay, settle down.”

“We have to stop him, before he makes it worse.”

“What could possibly be worse—No, on second thought, don’t answer that.”

Dean’s arms folded around him and he brought Sam back to the bed. “You need to rest, Sam. Heal.”

Sam shivered and turned his face into Dean’s neck. He wasn’t going to heal. None of them were. Still, he let Dean ease him back down, wrap his arms around him and whisper until his voice faded away.

Somewhere in the dark, their father was alone, on his way to throw himself at the mess he’d created, thinking that somehow he knew something that would buy him salvation.

But all he would buy was more of this.

Because John Winchester wasn’t what it wanted.

 

He woke shivering, cold. Dean rubbed a hand over his face, aware that Sam wasn’t laying beside him. “Sam?”

There was no immediate answer. He rolled toward the front flap, poking his head out. Sam was sitting at the table by Bobby’s trailer, his wounded hand being bandaged by Ellen.

He climbed out of the tent, rubbing sleep from his eyes and stretching. It was colder, the wind foul and icy as it blew through camp. Sam didn’t speak, didn’t move. Ellen finished taping down the bandages and looked up at Dean.

“Bobby’s gone after him.”

“After who?” Dean looked at the trailer, then at Sam. “Shit. Shit.” He kicked at the ground. “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

Ellen’s jaw tightened and she dusted her hands on her jeans. “I imagine he thinks he’s the reason you two look like you do.”

“He won’t survive out there.” Dean cursed under his breath. “I should go find him.” Although why Dean owed the son of a bitch anything was beyond him.

“We.” Sam said, standing.

“No, Sam. I won’t be long. You stay here.”

Sam shook his head. “Not alone. You go, I go.”

Dean sighed, already giving in. “There a car we can take?”

 

_The west is the best  
The west is the best  
Get here, and we’ll do the rest_

 

They roared out of camp, leaving a trail of dust behind them, chasing Sam’s feeling and Bobby’s tail lights back toward the city. West. Then north. 

Sam sat beside him, knees curled to his chest, feet on the dash, his head on his knees, his empty eyes staring out at nothing as they flew through the dark.

They caught Bobby outside of Boise, cursing the blown engine on his SUV. The city looked as though it had been bombed. Burned out cars lined the roads, burned out buildings hulked in shadows. 

Bobby rubbed at the back of his neck and as he got close enough, Dean could see the knot there. “What did he do, knock you out?”

Bobby grunted, nodding. “Fucking bastard. He’s apeshit, you know that don’t you?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You just figuring that out?”

“Knocked me out and dumped something in my gas line. He was rambling about some lake in Oregon.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, Sam too. Since…since we left the camp.”

The sky above them darkened, movement drawing their eyes upward. “We should get cover. They’re moving.”

“They’re just randomly hunting.” Sam said. “Don’t know were here.” He was suddenly beside Dean, his hand sliding under his arm. “It doesn’t know I know.”

Bobby looked at Dean, the question clear on his face. Dean shrugged. “He gets like that sometimes. Ever since…”

“Dragon Lake.” Sam said softly. “Dad’s almost there.” He turned his face to Bobby. “You should go back. Let us find him.”

“No offense Sam, but neither of you is in any shape—“

“You can’t go where we’re going.”

Dean sighed. “Get back in the car Sam.” When Sam had shuffled away Dean sighed again. “He’s not usually wrong. Go on back to those boys. They need you more than we do.” He held out his hand to shake, pulling Bobby into a hug. “I get the feeling this is it. Probably won’t see you again. You take care, old friend.”

Bobby snorted. “Watch who yer calling old.” He clapped Dean on the back and stepped away.

Dean climbed back behind the wheel and pulled them back onto the road. 

“We’re too late.” Sam whispered several hours later. “Don’t stop.”


	3. Chapter 3

_The blue bus is callin us  
The blue bus is callin us  
Driver, where you taking us?_

 

“Turn here.” Sam said breathless, pointing.

“Where? There’s no road.”

“There is.” He leaned forward as if he could see it, and he felt Dean slow the car, turning them onto a dirt lane that was barely big enough for the car.

“Shit, this—“ Dean cursed again as they bounced along the impossibly rutted road. “Sam, where the fuck are we?”

“First test.” He wasn’t sure what the rest were, but the first was getting up this road. Sam cradled his bandaged, wounded hand close to his chest. 

“There.” Dean said softly and the car slowed even more. “There’s a truck.”

Sam nodded. “Dad.”

“I don’t see him.”

Dean parked the car and Sam was out of it, feeling his way down the hood and holding out his hand for Dean. “He’s here.” Dean guided Sam’s hand to his elbow and they moved toward the truck. His heart was pounding. His hand slid along the side of the truck. It was cold to the touch. John had a big head start. 

There was a low growling sound, and Sam heard Dean cock a gun. “Easy Dean.” Sam tried to feel for it, but the whole area was…flat. Almost not real. He couldn’t rely on his gifts. 

They moved, slow steps. Sam could feel the brush clinging to their legs. The growl disintegrated into a whimper, then Dean gasped. “Dad.”

He was dead. Sam knew that. “There’s a…I don’t know what it is, but it’s dying, and a lake…big lake.”

“Second test.” Sam muttered, sinking to his knees in the mud next to his father. He too seemed somehow not real, too thin, too small, too dead. Everything was so very heavy. He hung his head.

“Dean?” He reached out a hand for his brother. Dean knelt opposite him, his hand sliding up Sam’s arm.

“I’m here, Sam.”

“I have to finish this.”

“Finish what?” There was an edge of anger in Dean’s voice. Anger and fear. 

“What Dad started. I have to fix it.”

“No, you don’t. You didn’t do this.”

“I think maybe I did.” Sam caught Dean’s hands, brought it to his lips. “But I can make it all go away.”

“By sacrificing yourself? No Sam. No.”

He had to make Dean understand. “Just me, Dean. Just me, for the whole world.”

“You’ve given enough Sam. You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“I owe you, Dean. I owe you something better.” Sam pulled his brother to him tightly, holding him close. “I love you. No matter what happens, remember I love you.” He took a deep breath and pulled back. “And, I’m sorry.” 

He punched Dean hard across the jaw, his left hand crunching against bone, pushing him off balance and away. Sam turned, ran. The lake was there, the answer was in the lake. He just had to get there before Dean figured it out.

 

_C’mon baby, take a chance with us  
C’mon baby, take a chance with us  
C’mon baby, take a chance with us  
And meet me at the back of the blue bus_

“Sam!”

Dean’s voice echoed around him, even as the icy water rose up his legs. The bottom of the lake fell away and he plunged into the cold, falling into the deep. He held his breath and resisted rising back to the surface. The answer was here.

His lungs burned, threatened to explode. He was vaguely aware of Dean’s body splashing in the water behind him. Final test.

It was harder than he imagined, letting go, exhaling the last of his air out into the frigid water. Everything was going quiet. Maybe she was gone. Maybe she had only been a figment of his father’s deranged mind.

Then a hand closed around his ankle and he was pulled, dropped, gasping and flailing like a fish on the ground. He sucked in air and coughed out water, rolled onto his back. 

“It has been a long time since a mortal has tried to reach me,” a deep female voice said, near his head. 

He sat up slowly. “Not many know how to find you.” There was magic here, strong, vital…deep earth magic. It amplified his psychic gifts, made it so he almost “see” her, long blue-black hair cascading past her knees, dress like water, flowing and moody, eyes of ice blue. 

“Why have you come?”

“You know why.”

“You wish a gift.” It wasn’t a question. She moved away. “You did not complete the trials. You are not worthy.”

“I’m so fucking sick of trials.” Sam spit. The demons in the hell-place made Dean fight through trials, nearly killing him. His failures had cost Sam his eyes. His father had fought through the first two of her trials, and it had cost him his life. He got to his feet, following her movement. “Look around you. The world has gone to hell while you hide away here in this place.”

“I care little for the world outside this place.”

Sam hung his head. “I do.”

She was suddenly right in front of him. “Why? Look what it has done to you.”

“Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe…I feel responsible.”

She seemed to consider that. Her hands touched his shoulders, his arms. “You think you have given enough, that you should not have to prove anything more?”

He nodded slowly. “I lost my mother, my father, my girlfriend, my eyes.”

“And yet, you have him.” She circled around behind him, passed a hand over his eyes and he could see Dean, standing dripping and miserable on the shore of the lake, screaming his name. 

“Dean.” Sam’s throat constricted around the name. He shook his head. “No, he holds me together, but eventually it will end us both.”

“You seek to remove the cause of this misery?”

Sam nodded. “I do.”

“He would rather have you back instead, even in this dark world…he would rather have you than the light.”

No. Sam wouldn’t believe that. Dean was in agony over what had happened, just as Sam was. If Dean had the choice…he would do the right thing. “He doesn’t understand.”

“I wonder if you do.”

He was dizzy and tired and cold and wet. “I know what I’m doing.”

“What if, in granting what you ask, I take away all that you have left?” She moved around him again. Dean faded away. “I will give you a gift. I will seek out the one thing in all of time that bears the most on this outcome you so despise. I will pluck that one thing out of existence, and all the world will change.”

 

_This is the end  
Beautiful friend  
This is the end  
My only friend, the end_

“It will go back to what it was before?”

“It will never be truly the same and, for all we know, this may yet occur.”

Sam shook his head. If she could do it, make it happen, his father would never have reason to raise the fucking demonic son of a bitch that did this. “And Dean…he’ll…he’ll be okay?”

“I can not tell all of the outcomes of the change.”

“I want to see him again.” Air brushed over his face and he could see Dean, sitting now beside the still body of their father. His voice was gone, his mouth still moving. Night was settling in, the dark of day deepening. There should be light…there should be golds and reds painting the lake and making Dean’s face shine. There should be choices beyond the ones they’d been given. A life without the loss and pain Dean had endured.

And he could give him that.

“Do it.” Pain lanced through his stomach and he doubled over.

“You accept my terms?”

Sam clenched his jaw. “Yes. Do it.” He held on to the image of Dean, tried to burn his face into his memory. The pain doubled as she touched his shoulder.

“Be very clear. I can not undo this once it has been done. You will be gone from their lives.”

“Just fucking do it.” He locked his eyes on Dean, even as his knees gave out, even as the pain pressed into him. 

Goodbye. 

It seemed like such a small word. A tiny prick of light in a vast empty nothing that slowly sucked him under.

 

_It hurts to set you free  
But you’ll never follow me  
The end of laughter and soft lies  
The end of nights we tried to die_

He thought he knew what would happen. He thought he understood. 

Then he woke in some hospital, alone. He hadn’t expected to wake at all. His eyes were bandaged, his hand splinted and bandaged as well. He was alive.

“I see you’ve finally decided to rejoin us, Mr. Roberts.”

Roberts. The last id he’d had, it had been in his wallet before the world went to hell…Dean must have kept it after…

“I’m Dr. Gutoch.”

Days stretched into weeks. Sam hovered somewhere between numb and frantic. There were questions he couldn’t answer. There were papers he couldn’t sign. Stories he couldn’t tell. Would never tell. 

They sent him a social worker. She tried to help him, set him up with a teacher to show him how to function without his eyes. He talked her into looking Dean up, not sure what to expect. 

“Mr. Dean Winchester, Lawrence, Kansas. Son of John and Mary Winchester. Twenty-six. Only child. Not a stellar student, but he graduated high school,” she reported in her happy, sing-song voice.

Only child. Sam had never been born. No Sam, no demon. No demon, no fire. No fire, and his mother lived. No, he reminded himself. She wasn’t his mother. She was Dean’s.

“His..” Sam cleared his throat. “His parents? Are they still alive?”

“You know this guy?”

Sam nodded. “In another life.”

“That where you’re headed?”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. But maybe. Just to make sure. Just to know.

“I don’t know. He won’t remember me.” It was wrong. Somehow, someway, he knew he should never seek him out. After everything he’d done to buy this. To give him what he’d never admit to wanting. A life without Sam.

He laid in his bed and let the memory of Dean’s face keep him warm. Dean laughing. Dean concentrating. Dean’s face as Sam was sucked away into hell.

It was an all night bus trip. All night and half the next day. Sam hated relying on people to help him find the bus, the men’s room, the diner. He had a backpack with a change of clothes and the little bit of money left from his emergency disability check.

He hated that he’d caved. Told himself he wouldn’t get involved. That he would just make sure that Dean was okay. That Dean was happy.

The social worker set him up with someplace called The Transition Center in Lawrence, a place that helped the newly disabled get settled back into life after their recovery. They would help him find a place to live, a job he could do to earn money. Make sure he didn’t crawl into the dark hole inside him and drown in the pool of his own self-pity.

He wanted nothing more than to go to the house. Hear Dean’s voice. He forced himself to go to the Transition Center first. The cab driver opened his door and pointed him toward the door to the center, told him it was about 8 steps to the door, maybe 7 with legs like his.

The cane tapped on the sidewalk, and up against the door. He felt for the handle, managed to open it without breaking the door or his foot. He stood for a second, listening, feeling. The front desk was only a few steps away.

“Help you?”

Sam froze mid step, the voice familiar, intimate. “Ah…I…I’m Sam.” No. It couldn’t be him.

“Sam Roberts? Been expecting you.”

Sam licked his lips, forced air in and out of his lungs. “And…you are?”

It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be.

“Dean Winchester. I’ve been assigned to your case.”

 

Sam hardly said a word, his head reeled. He’d just wanted to be close, he’d never intended to meet him, talk to him…and yet, here he was, going over the details in his file like he was a total stranger.

Because he was. A complete stranger. Sam Winchester didn’t exist. 

“It doesn’t say here how you lost your eyesight.”

Sam had to clear his throat to find his voice. “Eyes, not eyesight. Both of them. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Don’t blame you dude, neither would I.” He could hear Dean taping his pen against his lips. “The social worker in Boise submitted the paperwork to get you a dog, but there aren’t any ready yet. New class graduates in about two weeks. We’ll get you out to find you one soon.”

He wanted to say he didn’t need a dog. He wanted to pull Dean to him and hold him. He wanted to run away and never come back.

“Your apartment is ready, I can take you there and get you settled in just a little bit. Landlord’s a friend of mine. I got him to waive your first month’s rent so you have a little breathing room. We’ll give you a few days to settle in, then we’ll get you started on job assessments.”

Sam tried to pretend this was someone he didn’t know. “Just like that? I mean…you don’t know me.”

He could almost feel the smile. Like sun on his skin. “Dude, I know everything I need to. You’re Sam Roberts, 22, from Boise, at least most recently, and you dig me.”

Sam sat forward and coughed. “I…what?”

“Don’t sweat it. I know I’m sexy.”

 

The apartment was small, but he didn’t need much. Less room to get turned around in, less furniture to bruise himself on. 

“Bathroom’s at the end of the hall. There’s a closet here.” Dean set his hand on the door of the closet. “I had them take out the coffee table, at least for now. It just took up space anyway.” He made sure Sam was square with his back to the front door. “Couch is five steps to your right. Kitchen is straight ahead, seven steps. I had Margie fill the fridge for you. You should be set for a couple of days. Your file says you don’t read braile, so your meals might be a bit of a surprise.”

“I’m sure I can manage.”

Sam heard the refrigerator open and what sounded like a bottle opening. “Here.”

A cold bottle was pressed into his hand, then another one was opened. “What’s this?”

“Beer, to celebrate.” Dean clinked his bottle against Sam’s. “Your own place, a gorgeous aide, what more could a man want?”

If Sam didn’t know better, he’d think Dean was flirting. But he did know better. He’d let himself believe that Dean wanted him before, because it made taking what he offered easier, but Sam held no delusions. Dean only fucked Sam because Sam needed him to. 

He drank the beer, sat on the couch. Waited for Dean to leave. Dean didn’t leave.

“So…um…how’d a guy like you end up doing this?”

“What, I’m not your dream aide?” Dean shifted, and Sam tried to remember what his face looked like. “Nah…no big thing. Got into a bit of trouble, got community service in return. My mom’s friend worked at the center and she got me in there. Turns out I’m good at it, and I like helping people. I finished up my time, and they asked me to stay. So here I am.”

He could hear Dean swallow his beer, felt him get up. “And I should let you settle in. I’ll come by tomorrow to check on you.”

Sam stood too, walking toward the door with Dean. “You don’t have to. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“You are fine.” Dean responded. His hand lingered in Sam’s after they shaked. “And it’s my job. You an early riser, Sammy? Or do you like to sleep in?”

Sam couldn’t breathe. Sammy. It was so familiar, so easily intimate. So…Dean. He shook his head. “Don’t sleep much…not since…” He gestured vaguely at his eyes, hoping Dean would take it to mean it had something to do with the accident, and he supposed it did, in some ways. He managed not to think about that…not until after Dean was gone and the door was closed and he was alone.

Then Sam leaned against the door, sinking slowly down it and wrapping his arms around his stomach. He shuddered, sobbing from his gut. It was too much. And yet nowhere near enough.

 

A week. Seven days. Every morning at 9, Dean was at his door, coffee in hand and a list of things to get done. They’d gone shopping for clothes. He’d been introduced to the landlord and his wife and daughter. He’d met the neighbors. 

Dean had walked him to the corner where there was a little store, introduced him to the woman who ran it and her son. They’d tested his aptitude for jobs, things he could handle.

Sam yawned as they finished unloading the groceries they’d bought. Spending every day with Dean had been exhausting. 

“So…my mother wants me to invite you over for dinner.” Dean said.

Sam stopped. Everything. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. “She…what?”

Dean sighed. “She’s under some impression that I’m interested in you, and she feels the need to have you over, inspect the goods.”

Sam shook his head. This was more than he was ready for. “Thank you but…”

“I know, I wouldn’t want to go in for that inquisition either. Especially looking like you do.”

Sam frowned. “What’s wrong with how I look?”

There was the rustling of a bag, and Dean moved closer, turning Sam. “First of all, there’s these sun glasses. She won’t go for that at all.”

Dean’s hands slid the sunglasses off. Sam turned his face away instinctively, but Dean’s hand turned him back. “Dean…I don’t…just don’t look.”

His thumbs brushed over Sam’s eyelids, and down his cheeks. “Hmmm…better. Then there’s this hair. Dude, do you even own a comb?”

Sam lifted his hands to swipe through his hair distractedly. Then Dean’s hands settled on his hips…fingers sliding through belt loops. “And she’s going to take one look at this skinny body and sit you down at the table and insist on feeding you everything in the house to fatten you up.”

Dean tugged and Sam’s balance wavered. Their chests touched and Sam could feel Dean’s breath. He froze again and he couldn’t have pulled away if his life depended on it when Dean’s lips touched his.

His stomach twisted and his breathing twitched. Dean gasped, startled, his hands letting go. “Damn. Fuck. I’m sorry. That was…unprofessional. I’m sorry.” He put the sunglasses in Sam’s hand.

Dean was leaving, and Sam couldn’t move. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? We’ll talk about dinner then.”

The door was closed and Dean was gone before his name found its way past heated lips. Sam licked at the warmth, shaking his head.

He stumbled toward the table, sinking into a chair. Dean had kissed him. Willingly. By choice. And his mother wanted him to come for dinner.

The mother Sam had never known. 

He couldn’t. 

He shouldn’t. 

He wouldn’t. 

He’d just tell Dean ‘No’.

 

As if telling Dean “No” was something Sam had ever been capable of.

“Is this about yesterday?”

“What? No. I mean…that was okay.”

“No, it wasn’t. I was out of line. Even if you are gorgeous.”

Sam pressed his lips together. He was off kilter. He hadn’t slept, and he wasn’t sure if it was Dean’s kiss or the thought of meeting his mother. “I’m not really ready to meet people.” Sam said finally, toying with his coffee cup. “I’m sure your mother is great…”

“My mother is the best.” Dean said. “I think you’ll like her.”

“I’m sure I would.” 

“Good, then it’s settled. Sunday. I’ll come and get you around three.”

“Dean—“ 

His hand settled on Sam’s. “She’s going to love you, you know.” His fingers curled around Sam’s and as much as he wanted to pull his hand away, he found he couldn’t.

“Okay, you ready to get this day moving?”

All he really wanted to do was sit there with his brother…who wasn’t his brother anymore. “Actually, could we just…relax? I feel like we’ve done nothing but run since I got here.”

“Sure. You’re the boss.” His hand hadn’t left Sam’s, his fingers stroking lightly over the back of Sam’s hand, idly tracing scars. When Sam didn’t object, they slid up, under his shirt sleeve, onto the longer scar where a demon’s talon had sliced him open. “You certainly have a lot of these.” Dean murmured.

Once upon a time, Dean did too. Long, horrific scars that marred his perfect face. Scars he earned in his effort to free Sam. “Yeah. I grew up in a dangerous place.”

Dean’s fingers moved, up his arm, to his face. He pulled the sunglasses off and Sam flinched, reaching for them. “I want to look at you, not the glasses.” Dean said, moving his chair closer. His fingertips were gentle as they followed the small scars under his eye sockets, then gently over his eye lids. “Is it so bad? To let me see?”

Those fingers were mapping his face, cheekbones and chin, jaw-line and lips. He should have felt it coming, should have known and stopped it before it could start, but it still took him by surprise. It wasn’t the hesitant kiss of the day before. It was Dean, getting what he wanted. The way he always did.

His thumb on Sam’s chin encouraged Sam’s mouth open as his lips closed over Sam’s, his tongue, confident and forward, sliding into him. Electric current swept through him, arousal, desire, need.

Dean could feel it, Sam knew. His whole body tingled, responded. Sam stood quickly, exhaled. “I knew I wasn’t wrong.” Dean followed him, standing and moving with him into the kitchen. 

“Wrong?” Everything about this was wrong. 

“I knew you were into me.” 

How could he not be? This was Dean…and maybe it wasn’t his Dean…and maybe everything was different, but he smelled like Dean, tasted like Dean. And he was there, pressing Sam into the counter as he kissed him again.

“You can touch me, you know?” His breath was moist, hot and it skated over Sam’s jaw, up and into his ear. His hands moved in response, connected with the tight skin over tight muscle in Dean’s neck. His hand always did just sort of fit there, craddling Dean’s head, his thumb under Dean’s chin.

Sam sighed and Dean’s mouth was right there to catch it, swallowing it. “You taste like blueberries.” Dean said as he backed up a little and Sam shifted his feet, trying to find a shred of the resistance he’d started with.

“So that’s what that was.” He wiped his mouth, as if that would erase the memory of the taste. “I burned my tongue on my coffee. Couldn’t taste it.”

“You okay?”

Sam licked his lips. “I’m…I don’t know.”

“Is it too much?”

Sam groaned. It was nowhere near enough. 

“Say the word, Sam. I’ll never bring it up again.”

“No.” Sam’s stomach lurched at the thought that Dean would never touch him again. “I didn’t mean for this…when I came here. I wasn’t looking…”

He could imagine the smile, coy, slight…freckles over pink skin and his eyes lowered while he scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah…I know. Not what I was planning either.” Dean said. 

Sam felt him back off a step, felt the cold seep into the space between them. He reached for him, catching his hand. “Don’t…Just…”

“Go slow.” Dean finished for him. Sam nodded, drawing Dean’s hand up to his chest, against his heart. “I can do that.” Dean filled the emptiness, stepped in and up and Sam could breathe as long as the air came out of Dean’s mouth first.

He never could say no to Dean and mean it.

Dean’s hands slid inside his shirt, over the t-shirt. “You always wear so many clothes?”

“It was cold.” Sam said, and he wasn’t sure if he meant the time without Dean or the time before in the dark, but it didn’t really matter because he was warm enough now. Getting warmer too. He pulled at the sleeves and dropped the shirt. Dean helped, getting his hands up under the t-shirt and tugging it up. Before he’d gotten it off, his lips were on Sam’s skin, slipping over muscle. 

Sam gasped as Dean’s mouth closed over his nipple. So much for slow. 

“Cold now?” Dean asked.

Sam grabbed, pulled him up, his mouth hungry, desperate. 

“Easy, Sammy, easy.” 

Dean’s kiss was soft, tender…over the edges of Sam’s lips, into the corners of his mouth. It was everything it had never been when it had been just Sam and Dean alone in the dark. Sam had needed it then, and Dean had given it…because he couldn’t ever really say no to Sam either.

“Easy.” Dean breathes it onto his tongue, into his soul. His hands held Sam’s sides, his thumbs resting along Sam’s hip bones. “Easy, Sammy.”

His knees wobbled and his cock was craving and Sam was breathing hard already…and Dean would never know why. Just hearing his name like that burned into him and made him crazy with want. Then Dean’s arms were around Sam and he was drawing Sam in, away from the counter. “I’ve got you.”

Sam felt unanchored, disoriented, lost inside this...inside Dean. They stumbled down the hall, Dean’s hands and lips the only thing keeping him from breaking apart. 

“Dean.” Sam pulled at Dean’s shirt and Dean caught his hands, kissing them lightly.

“Easy. Slow, remember?”

“Slow…” Sam felt the bed behind him and Dean guided him down. The bed moved and Dean’s hands slid over Sam’s stomach. 

“This may sound strange, but I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.” 

Then everything exploded in a blast of color and light as Dean’s hands freed Sam’s cock and his mouth swallowed it in one stroke. Sam’s body arched up off the bed and Dean chuckled as he slid off.

“Slow…” Sam panted. “You said slow.”

Dean’s hands were tugging on his jeans, pulling them down. “I lied.” His mouth was back on Sam, his tongue moving around the tip and down. Sam reached for him, but Dean eluded him. “Relax, I’ve got you.”

Sam wasn’t relaxing, in fact his body was a straight line of tension, his breath rasping through clenched teeth. Whatever he’d had before, it was nothing like this…further proof that this wasn’t his Dean. His hands fisted in the sheets, already damp with sweat as he writhed and Dean followed, sucking him in now until Sam whimpered. 

“Dean!” It was long and drawn out, one syllable filling the room as Sam bucked up and came hard and fast. He collapsed to the mattress as Dean’s mouth slid off him and he turned those lips to Sam’s thigh. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, his mouth closing over a thick scar on Sam’s left thigh from a torn up fence when he was sixteen. He kissed up, spreading Sam’s legs further apart to make room, licking the sweat gathered there in the crease of leg and hip, pausing to suck lightly at the jut of hip bone, nipping, then licking the sting away.

Unerringly, his lips and fingers and tongue found every scar, every mark ever made on his body by the evil and supernatural…all the way up to his eyes. Dean’s lips lingered there, on first his left eyelid, then the right, before he took Sam’s mouth, all salt and come and something else Sam couldn’t quite place.

Dean’s body was laid out along his, his cock a line of heat against his thigh, hidden behind denim. Sam took a deep breath, feeling it shudder through his chest, and kissed Dean back, pressing him back to the bed, rolling so it was Sam laid out long against Dean’s body. 

He followed Dean’s pattern in reverse, sliding his mouth up over the places where the worst of the scars had been, up over his left cheek bone, chasing into the hair line, down to his ear, over his neck. “Shirt,” he murmured, pulling until he got it loose and Dean could pull it up and off. 

Sam licked down his collarbone, nipping lightly at the place where there used to be a crooked scar from barbed wire he’d fallen on trying to get a rawhead. He moved slowly, reverently. His Dean would never have laid still and let him do this.

Under the left nipple there had been a mark, thin and fading from a time when Dean was 9 and Sam was 5 and Sam can’t remember for the life of him how he got it, only that it had been his fault. Sam slid down, kissing over ripped abs that undulated under his mouth. He quirked his head to the side. “Ticklish?”

“No.” Dean lied. Sam knew all the places that made his brother move like that. He let his tongue drag between heavy muscles, then flicked at the space lightly. Dean twisted, surged up. Sam pushed him back down. “Relax, I’ve got you.” Sam repeated. Dean groaned and Sam went back to cataloguing his beautiful, unmarked skin…until he found one scar, on his right side. 

He kissed over it, like it was sacred, a tie to the Dean he knew. 

“Appendix.” Dean said softly.

Sam breathed along his waistband, his hands fumbling, shaking…until the zipper finally gave and then he was easing jeans down and away, holding his breath…because this too was something Dean never gave him. They were never naked, always needed to be able to run, duck and cover, hide. He dropped the jeans on the floor and Sam was there, kneeling between Dean’s naked legs.

“Sam…” He kissed the inside of one knee, then the other, alternating and working his way back up to his cock. Sam’s fingers felt for it, touched it, closed around it. 

Sam breathed over the tip as he bent to take it into his mouth. He’d never done it before…not for Dean, not for anyone…but he licked at it gamely, flicking his tongue under the edge of the head, then fluttering it down one side and up the other. The tip was wet, salty and, it took a moment for him to realize, it was pre-come. 

Sam opened his mouth and took him in, tentative at first, but gaining momentum as he got a feel for the depth and width and Dean’s body responded, tiny thrusts of his hips, the grunts and a whimper. 

Dean’s hand was on his arm, squeezing a warning just before his hip lifted, thrust and Sam’s mouth filled with heat. He swallowed what he could, but it spilled out and all over. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand as Dean sat up, apologizing.

“Jesus, Sam, I’m sorry.”

Sam shook his head, wiped his hands on the sheet. “It’s okay.”

“Just sit still. I’ll get a washcloth.”

Sam listened to him padding into the bathroom and back, felt a warm, wet cloth on his face, then the bed moved and Dean’s arms folded around him. “You okay?”

Sam nodded, settled against the pillows. It was more than he’d ever imagined.

“Does this mean you’re coming for dinner on Sunday?”

Sam sighed and swallowed the panic. “We’ll see.”

 

He didn’t want to do this. On levels even he couldn’t explain. This wasn’t his life. These weren’t his parents. This wasn’t his brother. He shouldn’t be here. Not now, not like this.

Dean was opening his door. He could smell the spaghetti sauce. He put his feet on the ground but didn’t stand. “I…I don’t think I’m ready.”

Dean squatted beside him. “It’s okay Sam.”

He could hear the disappointment in his voice. He needed Dean to understand. “I…I lost my family. They…my mother died when I was six months old. I never knew her.”

Dean’s hands caressed his, his thumbs rubbing soft circles on his skin. “Sam, I’m so sorry.”

Sam shook his head. “My father…he did what he could…but…and then he died…and my brother and I…we went through hell.” He pushed at the sunglasses in a defensive gesture. Like they could protect him from the intensity of Dean’s gaze. Sam didn’t need vision to see it on him. “And…I lost them all. I’ve been alone ever since.” It was more than he’d said about his past to anyone. Too close to the truth, to everything that had never happened here.

Dean’s kiss was light, sweet. “You’re not alone anymore.” His arms slid around Sam and somehow Sam found himself standing, moving. His hand was on Dean’s elbow and he murmured instructions. “Crack in the sidewalk, step up. Stairs, three, shallow.”

The porch creaked under them and the screen door complained as it opened. “It’s about time, your mother’s been waiting.”

Sam froze. The gruff tone, the presence. Dad.

No, not Dad. John.

“Dad, this is Sam. Sam, my father, John Winchester.”

“Honey, is that you?” Dean was leading him inside. He could still feel John’s eyes on him. He was starting to hyperventilate.

“Hey Mom, we’re here. This is Sam.” Dean pulled on his hand to draw Sam’s attention away from John. “Sam, my mom, Mary.”

“Oh, look at you. Dean told me you were a handsome man, but just look at you.”

He felt her hands on his, then she swept him into a hug. “Dean’s told us everything about you. I feel like you’re a part of the family already.”

“Mom, you’re freaking him out.” Dean rescued Sam from her and guided him into the kitchen. “Is dinner ready yet? I’m starving, and Sam here’s been surviving on frozen dinners since he got here.”

Dean guided Sam to a seat. Sam let the banter swirl around him, the unfamiliar sounds of a family setting the table. John’s voice rumbled under Mary’s and Dean’s. Silverware clanked against plates. They moved around him. Chairs scraped on floors. Then Dean was guiding Sam’s hands to his plate, setting silverware in his hands, telling him where each kind of food was.

It felt like home.

The home he never had.

His gut ached…but this is what he had given Dean. Parents, a home. 

_This is the end, my beautiful friend_

Dean’s hand found his under the table, squeezing lightly. Sam turned his face toward Dean. 

Dean was happy. 

That was all the light Sam would ever need.


End file.
